| Frederick H. Joseph | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 22, 1937 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | November 27, 2009 (aged 72)[1] New York city |
| Residence | New York city |
| Other names | "Fred" |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (BA, 1959) Harvard Business School (MBA, 1963) |
| Occupation | Investment banking |
| Years active | 1963-1990, 2001-2009 |
| Employer | Drexel Burnham Lambert Morgan Joseph & Co. |
| Known for | Fred |
Frederick H. "Fred" Joseph (1937—2009) was the former president and chief executive officer of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert during the 1980s.
The son of a Boston cabdriver, Joseph graduated from Harvard University in 1959 and received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1963. While at Harvard, Joseph won several boxing medals.
In 1963, Joseph began his career in finance in the corporate finance department of E. F. Hutton working for John S.R. Shad. Following Shad's departure from Hutton, Joseph left the firm as well to join Shearson, Hammill & Co. By the early 1970s, Joseph was the chief operating officer of the firm. However, in 1974, Shearson was acquired by Hayden, Stone & Co. and Joseph left the firm to join Drexel Burnham Lambert as co-head of corporate finance. Joseph had long wanted to get back into investment banking. He boldly promised that in 10 years, Drexel would be as powerful as Goldman Sachs. Although junk-bond chief Michael Milken was the most powerful man in the firm, it was Joseph who was named president in 1984 and CEO in 1985.
In 1988, Joseph was responsible for negotiating Drexel's settlement with the federal government, in which the firm pled no contest to six felony counts and paid $650 million in fines and penalties—at the time, the largest fine ever imposed under the 1930s securities laws. In 1993, the SEC barred Joseph from serving as president, chairman or CEO of a securities firm for life for failing to properly supervise Milken. In 2009, Portfolio.com and CNBC named Joseph the seventh-worst CEO in American business history stating that "his poor management left the company without a crisis plan".[2]
In 2001, Joseph resurfaced on Wall Street, when he co-founded Morgan Joseph & Company, an investment banking firm that focuses on middle-market businesses. Although the firm carries his name and he was part-owner, he was only co-head of corporate finance as a result of the SEC's lifetime ban.[3]